Poetic Edda Voluspá Discussion I:XVII-XVIII

Voluspá Discussion I:XVII-XVIII

XVII

To the coast then came,          kind and mighty,

from the gathered gods          three great Æsir;

on the land they found,          of little strength,

Ask and Embla,          unfated yet.

The three gods encounter Ask and Embla. Ask, the Ash tree, became the first man, and Embla becomes the first woman. Modern culture seems to accept Embla as an Elm tree, but according to Hollander, Embla is, or rather may be, a vine. While the idea of the two trees becoming the first man and woman does have a somewhat more romantic feel than a tree and a vine, the Ash and the Vine does make a little more sense in that the tree does spread its seed, and the vine, grape vine, bears fruit. 

XVIII

Sense they possessed not,          soul they had not,

being nor bearing,          nor blooming hue;

soul gave Othin,          sense gave Hœnir,

being, Lothur,          and blooming hue.

Ask and Embla existed, but without sense or soul. The Gods, or possibly triple aspect of the one creator God Odin, gave life, existence, and self awareness to them. Odin gave them that which is immortal, or "other" than this world. That which is beyond good and evil and the need for the concepts of right and wrong. I say this because we will see that the Allfather is not a being to be trusted, while at the same time there is much to admire and emulate. One might see Odin's gift as a kind of self centeredness, or selfishness. This is far from the case. Odin's gift here is more a need for growth and knowledge beyond the human realm. A drive for growth that is beyond the self or others. A drive that will simply destroy the self or others if they should get in the way of this quest for knowledge. This is a dangerous, but powerful gift. Hœnir gave them the ability to temper Odin's gift. Hœnir's gift allows them to know their place in relation to the world around them, and the ability to empathize with others. Considering Odin's gift, this is very important. It creates in one the ability to temper Odin's gift so that one's inner growth does not do harm to the self or others...or at least that any harm does not occur outside of conscious choice. Lothur's gift is the gift of identity and physical appearance. This is not so superficial as it may appear. In the world view of the Norse people there was a sense of reincarnation. Part of this is actually quite evident in one's physical appearance. We do physically reflect our ancestors, as we reflect them in our emotional and intellectual attitudes. 

Now, to step back and look at this from the perspective of spiritual and intellectual evolution, we've reached a point of self reliance and almost a feeling of immortality. The individual is created on their own needs, the pursuit of personal enjoyment and growth, the world is ours for the taking. We can guess at what happens in the lost stanzas, but what we do know is that in the end the individual has been confronted with his mortality. He realizes that eventually he will come to an end, so he sets out to produce offspring. The gifts given to the offspring come in the form of knowledge, morals, personality, appearance, and a touch of immortality in the sense that something of the self that is bigger than the self is propigated. This begins  to reveal something fo the complex Nordic soul in which our ancestors are very much a part of us, we are an extension of them, and at the same time we are still individuals. We are a part of the continuation of our people in an unbroken line back to the Gods themselves, and continuing that line on in to the future. This closes a section of the Voluspá. The next section could almost be seen to describe the events in the missing stanzas, but as we will see, it takes on a distinctly different style.